Reddit reviews A Briefer History of Time: The Science Classic Made More Accessible
We found 15 Reddit comments about A Briefer History of Time: The Science Classic Made More Accessible. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Bantam
A Briefer History of Time is even better, more current and better edited.
Hello and welcome! Here are my recommendations for de-indoctrinating yourself:
Take some time to learn about the history of the bible. For example, you can take the Open Yale Courses on Religious Studies for free.
Read Who Wrote the Bible by Richard Elliott Friedman
Also read A History of God by Karen Armstrong
Watch this talk from Sam Harris where he explains why "free will" is likely an illusion, which debunks the entire premise of "the fall of man" as presented by most Christian religions.
Watch this video on the Cordial Curiosity channel that teaches how the "Socratic Method" works, which essentially is a way to question why we believe what we believe. Do we have good reasons to believe them? If not, should we believe them?
Watch this video by Theramin Trees that explains why we fall for the beliefs of manipulative groups in the first place.
This video explains why and how childhood indoctrination works, for those of us born-in to a high-control group.
Another great source is this youtube series debunking 1914 being the start of the last days.
Next, learn some science. For example - spoiler alert: evolution is true. Visit Berkeley's excellent Understanding Evolution Website. Or, if you're pressed for time, watch this cartoon.
Read Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne.
Read The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins.
Watch this series where Aron Ra explains in great detail how all life is connected in a giant family tree.
Learn about the origin of the universe. For example, you could read A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
Learn about critical thinking from people like [Michael Shermer] (http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things?language=en), and how to spot logical fallacies.
For good measure, use actual data and facts to learn the we are NOT living in some biblical "last days". Things have gotten remarkably better as man has progressed in knowledge. For example, watch this cartoon explaining how war is on the decline.
Read The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker.
Watch this Ted Talk by Hans Rosling, the late Swedish Statistician, where he shows more evidence that the world is indeed becoming a better place, and why we tend to wrongly convince ourselves otherwise.
I wish you the best. There is a whole world of legitimate information out there based on actual evidence that we can use to become more knowledgeable people.
You may still wonder how you can be a good human without "the truth." Here is a good discussion on how one can be good without god. --Replace where he talks about hell with armageddon, and heaven with paradise--
Start to help yourself begin to live a life where, as Matt Dillahunty puts it, you'll "believe as many true things, and as few false things as possible."
On science and evolution:
Genetics is where it's at. There is a ton of good fossil evidence, but genetics actually proves it on paper. Most books you can get through your local library (even by interlibrary loan) so you don't have to shell out for them just to read them.
Books:
The Making of the Fittest outlines many new forensic proofs of evolution. Fossil genes are an important aspect... they prove common ancestry. Did you know that humans have the gene for Vitamin C synthesis? (which would allow us to synthesize Vitamin C from our food instead of having to ingest it directly from fruit?) Many mammals have the same gene, but through a mutation, we lost the functionality, but it still hangs around.
Deep Ancestry proves the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins. It's no longer even a debate. MtDNA and Y-Chromosome DNA can be traced back directly to where our species began.
To give more rounded arguments, Hitchens can't be beat: God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist (which is an overview of the best atheist writings in history, and one which I cannot recommend highly enough). Also, Dawkin's book The Greatest Show on Earth is a good overview of evolution.
General science: Stephen Hawking's books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time are excellent for laying the groundwork from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity through to the modern discovery of Quantum Mechanics.
Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine are also excellent sources for philosophical, humanist, atheist thought; but they are included in the aforementioned Portable Atheist... but I have read much of their writings otherwise, and they are very good.
Also a subscription to a good peer-reviewed journal such as Nature is awesome, but can be expensive and very in depth.
Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is also an excellent look at the human mind and genetics. To understand how the mind works, is almost your most important tool. If you know why people say the horrible things they do, you can see their words for what they are... you can see past what they say and see the mechanisms behind the words.
I've also been studying Zen for about a year. It's non-theistic and classed as "eastern philosophy". The Way of Zen kept me from losing my mind after deconverting and then struggling with the thought of a purposeless life and no future. I found it absolutely necessary to root out the remainder of the harmful indoctrination that still existed in my mind; and finally allowed me to see reality as it is instead of overlaying an ideology or worldview on everything.
Also, learn about the universe. Astronomy has been a useful tool for me. I can point my telescope at a galaxy that is more than 20 million light years away and say to someone, "See that galaxy? It took over 20 million years for the light from that galaxy to reach your eye." Creationists scoff at millions of years and say that it's a fantasy; but the universe provides real proof of "deep time" you can see with your own eyes.
Videos:
I recommend books first, because they are the best way to learn, but there are also very good video series out there.
BestofScience has an amazing series on evolution.
AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism is awesome.
Thunderfoot's Why do people laugh at creationists is good.
Atheistcoffee's Why I am no longer a creationist is also good.
Also check out TheraminTrees for more on the psychology of religion; Potholer54 on The Big Bang to Us Made Easy; and Evid3nc3's series on deconversion.
Also check out the Evolution Documentary Youtube Channel for some of the world's best documentary series on evolution and science.
I'm sure I've overlooked something here... but that's some stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions about anything, or just need to talk, send me a message!
>without a God how did the universe come into existence?
I could rephrase that into a question that would be even more baffling:
>with a God, how did the universe come into existence?
The 2nd one is more crazy to explain, because now you need to know how a god was created, not just why there is or isn't more or less matter and energy.
If you are genuinely interested in astrophysics, here are some good books written by people who know more than me about the issues you mention:
http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X
http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461
Remember, even if you don't know the answer to a question about nature, it's always OK to say "I don't know." It's not OK to pretend that a story about the supernatural explains an issue in the natural world, if embracing the myth about the supernatural wouldn't really explain how things work, and would really only raise more questions.
Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:
Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
The more you know, the more confident you will be.
If you want to go the self teaching route there are some great books you can get. A nice introduction is: http://www.amazon.com/Astronomy-Self-Teaching-Guide-Wiley-Guides/dp/0470230835/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Beyond that there's this book: http://www.amazon.com/Astrophysics-Easy-Introduction-Astronomer-Practical/dp/1852338903/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595032&sr=1-1&keywords=astrophysics+is+easy It gets way more in depth. This book will leave you with a really great understanding of the universe.
It looks like about.com has a free intro to astronomy course: http://space.about.com/cs/astronomy101/a/astro101a.htm
I haven't gone through this course but poking through it it looks like it covers a lot of information.
Something I do to stay on top of current astronomy issues is read Sky and Telescope magazine and check out space.com and universetoday.com, sometimes I'll run into concepts that I'm not very familiar with and that's where wikipedia helps out.
Let's say you read an article talking about how old a star in a globular cluster is and you're like "what the hell is a globular cluster?" and you haven't read about it in one of your intro to astronomy books, well, bam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster
The books that are regularly considered the best introductions to skywatching are:
Nightwatch by Terrence Dickinson
Backyard Astronomer's Guide by T. Dickinson
and
Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis (you must get this book if you buy a telescope)
Below are some other great books that get much more in depth on the astrophysics side of things.
http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595413&sr=1-1&keywords=a+briefer+history+of+time
http://www.amazon.com/Cosmology-Short-Introduction-Peter-Coles/dp/019285416X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367595478&sr=1-2&keywords=cosmology
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. A layman's guide to the history of modern physics and the universe. Its a much shorter version of A Brief History of Time.
My labor day reading! :)
Used 2 bucks with 4 bucks shipping
Favorite quote: “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
The book "A Briefer History of Time" does an awesome job at explaining this.
http://www.amazon.ca/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461
i think the subject is covered in this neat little read:
A Briefer History of Time
check it out one day. totally worth it.
Guns Germs and Steel
A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Briefer History of Time
The Magic of Reality
I've never studied Physics beyond high school but I have the same interest as you. A few of the books I've read that might interest you include:
You Are Here - Christopher Potter
Physics of the Impossible - Michio Kaku
A Briefer History of Time - Hawking, really easy to read version
There was another one along the same lines I read recently that was pretty good too. If I remember it I'll list it later.
i suggest you read hawkings' a briefer history of time
http://www.amazon.com/Briefer-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553385461/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291595534&sr=1-2
I second this. There are plenty of pop science books that give a good foundation of science in a big-picture way, which can then be applied to more dense studied.
One of my favorites: A Briefer History of Time
Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, and Carl Sagan all have excellent and very readable books.